


Knights and Kings

by pinkstarpirate



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M, cursing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-29 08:18:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5121383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkstarpirate/pseuds/pinkstarpirate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ronan doesn't want help.  He doesn't want to seem weak and needy, but he has to admit that he can't fix this by himself.  However, he already shooed Adam away, so there is only one friend he can call to help him clean up this mess.  (Takes place during the church scene in Blue Lily, Lily Blue)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knights and Kings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chainofprospit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chainofprospit/gifts).



> Dear Chainofprospit,  
> This is my very first fanfic for this fandom, so I hope that you find it adequate. I tried very hard to get the right tone and to make sure that this is canon-compliant. I do regret that I couldn't write you smut. Because I put it smack dab in the middle of the canon story, I felt that smut would derail it and make it less believable. That isn't to say that I will never try my hand at smutty Pynch/Gansey, but I couldn't get it to work this time. All the same, please enjoy!
> 
> To everyone else,  
> Just in case you don't remember the order of events in the book (I had to refresh myself)...This fic takes place during _Blue Lily, Lily Blue_ , right after Ronan has dreamt the envelope of goods that he and Adam will use against Greenmantle, also the same night that they brought back Gwenllian. It is also the night that Adam's father comes and threatens him. This story should fit very slickly into the canon, and though there are some slight inconsistencies with Adam's POV right before (he thought Gansey would swoon if he saw Ronan's dead double), this is from Ronan's POV, and I'm pretty sure that Ronan knows Gansey is made of tougher things. 
> 
> So, with that said, please enjoy this first attempt at me writing fanfiction for The Raven Cycle. I adore this series, and I hope that I did it at least some justice.

Ronan watches as Adam retreats down the stairs and out of the church.  Ronan feels sick—sick because Greenmantle murdered his father, sick because of this evidence he created, and sick because Adam witnessed him at his worst yet again.  Ronan nudges the body with the tip of his shoe and sighs.  He probably shouldn’t have forced Adam to leave, because cleaning this up alone won’t be easy, but the death of his double disturbs Ronan in ways he can’t deal with when Adam is around. 

Ronan called it a cool trick, played it off as some clever sleight of hand, but it was too close.  Ronan knows how it feels to have claws and teeth rake over his skin, shredding it to ribbons.  He remembers the night Gansey sat next to him in the hospital when he thought Ronan attempted suicide.  Ronan hadn’t known then how to tell Gansey he’d never do such a stupid thing.  Ronan is more the type to relish in his pain, and let it sharpen him, than to try and escape from it.

Ronan knew he’d never completely be rid of the night horrors, but he didn’t usually call them so intentionally to himself.  To Adam, what Ronan brought back are simply ideas, the barely-there suggestion of concepts; but to Ronan, the evidence had to be tangible, _real_ , to take from the dream.   Ronan never imagined that there could be things he would be told to dream worse than what is already in his own head, but there are; and because Adam told him to dream it, he did. 

Ronan didn’t mean to use the death of his dream-double to punish Adam, but Ronan is angry and feels dirty and he had _warned_ Adam.  Dammit, Ronan had told Adam what might happen, and of course Adam didn’t listen, because Adam has always been a stubborn, prideful thing.

Ronan takes out his phone and dials Gansey’s number.  There is an appropriate amount of surprise in Gansey’s voice as he greets Ronan. “I was starting to wonder if you actually knew how to dial out from your phone.  I was thinking of pulling you aside sometime to show you how,” Gansey says in a serious voice that is anything but.

“I need you to come to the church,” Ronan says, and he kicks the body again, because he _hates_ asking for help.  It only illustrates his weaknesses.

“Is it Adam?  Is there something wrong?” Gansey asks in a calm, slow way.  This is the voice that Gansey uses when he is his most worried, the one that sounds steady and sure, but in reality is Gansey’s, _‘I’m really freaking out here,’_ voice. 

“Parrish is fine,” Ronan says, words cold and clipped. 

He doesn’t know whether to be upset that Gansey is more worried about Adam than him.  Ronan isn’t the kind of person who wants his friends to worry, but sometimes, he knows his friends _should_ worry because there is legitimately something to worry about.

“Oh,” Gansey says, the relief in his voice almost palpable.  “Then why are you calling?”

“I need help cleaning something up.”

Gansey pauses, and Ronan knows that Gansey knows.  It isn’t the first time he’s had to enlist Gansey to help him declutter his own mind when too much of it has leaked out into reality. 

“You are at the church,” Gansey says, stating the obvious.

“I am,” Ronan confirms, and he tries very hard not to be annoyed by Gansey’s desire for explanations.

“And you called _me_?” Gansey asks, and there are too many questions stuffed inside this question for Ronan’s liking.

“I did,” Ronan says, but he doesn’t elaborate, because he is worried he might take his phone and chuck it over the railing, and he doesn’t have the energy or desire to dream himself a new one tonight. 

“And Adam?” Gansey lets Adam’s name hang, like Gansey doesn’t really know what to ask.

“Come help,” Ronan says and clicks off his phone to end the call.  He just isn’t in a talking kind of mood, and Gansey probably knows that. 

Ronan sits in a pew in the main area, down below the choir balcony, and waits for Gansey to arrive.  Gansey doesn’t take long, but he apologizes.  He had still been dealing with the issue of Gwenllian at 300 Fox Way when Ronan called.  Ronan leads Gansey up the stairs to where the body is, and Ronan watches as Gansey staggers when they reach it. 

“Is that?” Gansey asks through a shaky voice, and he looks very much like he might be sick.

“It is,” Ronan says as he bends down to assess the easiest way to go about this.  At least Gansey had the foresight to bring garbage bags.

“And Adam isn’t helping why?” Gansey asks as he looks up at the ceiling, trying to look at anything other than the body.

“Parrish and I had a disagreement,” Ronan says.  The fighting between him and Adam isn’t anything new.  Honestly, it’s almost a weekly occurrence. 

Gansey covers his nose and mouth with his hand and side-eyes the broken atrocity on the floor.  “A disagreement about what?” Gansey asks, his words muffled behind his fingers.

Ronan sighs—a short, exasperated sigh that does little to explain the situation, but Gansey waits for the answer, patient as ever.  “This,” Ronan finally says.  “We fought about this.”

“Well,” Gansey begins, his hand still covering his mouth.  He raises an eyebrow at Ronan, “I can hardly understand why.”

“I don’t need your sass,” Ronan says as he reaches over and grabs the box of garbage bags out of the hand Gansey isn’t using to shield his mouth.  “What I need is for you to help me shove my dead double into an extra-large, heavy duty garbage bag, and then drag it down the stairs to my car.  And before you worry yourself, no one is here.  Well, except Adam.  He is in his apartment, because I told him to get the fuck away from me.”

“Lucky guy,” Gansey says flatly.  “What can I do to earn the same honor?”

“Again.  Sass,” Ronan warns with a sneer, lip curling a little in annoyance. 

He would gladly shoo Gansey away if he could, but then he’d have only two other options; and Ronan is fairly sure Noah has never materialized inside of the church, and Blue might kill the only Ronan left alive if Ronan drags her into this.  However, he is fairly certain Blue could move the body to the car by the strength of her sheer stubbornness and irritation alone. 

Ronan reconsiders his choice.  Maybe he should have called Blue instead of Gansey.

“You should probably move your car closer to the side entrance,” Gansey tells Ronan as he pulls a pair of latex gloves out of his pocket.  Ronan is a bit annoyed that this has become so routine that Gansey automatically brings those gloves with him.

Ronan pulls his keys out of his pocket and tosses them to Gansey, who is caught off-guard, and almost drops them onto the body.  “You go get the car.  I’ll bag the groceries.”

“Don’t be distasteful,” Gansey says flatly, sounding a bit too much like Blue, but Ronan tries not to dissect that right now.  Gansey doesn’t argue with Ronan’s directions.  He rushes down the stairs and outside.  It isn’t long before Ronan hears Gansey coming back up.

Ronan has already managed to shove his dead self into one bag, and then to prevent leakage, with Gansey’s help, they shove the first bag into a second one.

 “I suppose this is easier since rigor mortis hasn’t set in.  Also, the whole twisted like a pretzel thing helps too,” Ronan says as he lifts one side of the bag and waits for Gansey to take the other.

“I do recall telling you not to be distasteful,” Gansey says as he bends down and takes the other end of the body. 

Gansey is wearing his latex gloves, and Ronan scoffs, because Gansey didn’t even help shove the body into the first bag, and that was the messy part.  Gansey gets mad when Ronan accuses him of being prissy about certain things, but seeing as Gansey is handling this better than Adam did—who reacted in a way that _figuratively_ killed Ronan as brutally as his double was _literally_ killed the night horrors—Ronan decides that he really shouldn’t complain. 

At least this whole thing is distracting enough that Ronan doesn’t have to think about the envelope that Adam took.  He never wants to dream anything like that ever, ever again.  It scares Ronan to know how easy it was for him to create something so abhorrent.  It only reaffirms that he is terrible.  

Body in hand, Gansey and Ronan shuffle along and make their way down the stairs and then out the side entrance.  The car is there, still running, trunk open. 

“Well, glad my unlocked BMW with the keys in the ignition didn’t get stolen,” Ronan says, not at all hiding the annoyance in his voice.  Gansey huffs and helps lift the body up enough to dump it in the trunk.  Ronan slams the lid down and growls, “Stay here, I need to clean up the rest.”

Gansey doesn’t argue, but he does stare at the trunk, a perturbed expression on his face before he walks around the side of the car and drops into the passenger seat.  “I’ll be here,” he says before closing the door. 

There is a closet by the office that has a caddy of cleaning supplies.  Ronan makes quick work of the blood seeping into the wood beneath the pew.  He doesn’t do a great job, perfunctory at best, but Ronan doesn’t think it matters much.  If someone finds it and tests it, the only thing they will discover is that Ronan Lynch bled here, and not that he actually died here too.

Ronan puts the caddy of cleaning supplies back into the closet and goes outside.  He climbs into the car, revs the engine in a way that makes Gansey give him a ‘ _we are trying to be inconspicuous here_ ’ look, which Ronan answers with a ‘ _if I don’t make the BMW be loud and obnoxious it might seem more conspicuous_ ’ look right back.  Ronan rips around the corner of the parking lot, ready to speed out onto the road, but slams on the brakes when something runs in front of the car. 

“Oh my,” Gansey says breathless, “Was that a person you almost hit?”

“It was,” Ronan says, and the figure of a man rushes away into the darkness.  It isn’t until he crawls into the cab of a broken down piece of shit truck at the end of the parking lot that Ronan realizes who it is.

“Was that?” Gansey starts, but Ronan doesn’t let him finish.

“Robert Fucking Parrish,” Ronan hisses, venom and poison dripping from each word.

The truck backfires, and then shakes to life. Robert Parrish peels out of the parking lot, and Gansey must sense that Ronan wants to follow, because he puts a hand on Ronan’s shoulder, and Ronan thinks about biting it. 

“Adam,” Gansey reminds Ronan, and then exits the car. 

Suddenly it doesn’t matter that there is a body in the trunk, or that Robert Parrish is getting away.  Ronan throws the car into park and turns it off.  He is running right after Gansey up the steps to Adam’s apartment.  Ronan can practically taste the air of Cabeswater and the trees as he stops outside Adam’s door. 

Gansey knocks and is answered by silence.  Ronan pounds on the door and gets the same reply.

“Open up, Parrish.  Open up or I’m breaking it down,” Ronan growls, and he will.  He will break down any barrier between him and Adam, because Ronan is shaking and scared, and all he can remember right now is Adam on the ground in a pool of blood, Adam in the hospital bandaged and deaf, Adam broken into pieces and Ronan not knowing how the hell to put him back together.  “I saw your piece of shit father, Adam.  You have five seconds before this door comes down.

The lock clicks, and Adam swings the door inward.  “Thank you for your concern, but I’d appreciate if you’d just go home, Ronan,” Adam almost whispers.  He doesn’t even notice Gansey, because Adam’s eyes are locked securely on the ground.

“Are you alright?” Gansey asks, and it startles Adam, like some small prey animal being spooked. 

“What?” Adam starts, looking from Gansey to Ronan, and then back to Gansey.  “What are you doing here?”

“He’s helping me,” Ronan says and shoves his way into the apartment.  He scans the room for evidence of violence.  He thankfully comes up with none.  Inside, it smells even more like Cabeswater, and Ronan can almost hear the whispers of the trees rustling around his mind.  They aren’t here, per say, but they are present.

When Adam steps away from the door to deal with Ronan, Gansey uses the opportunity to also enter.  Adam starts to look less like a scared creature and more like an angry one.  He doesn’t take kindly to being double-teamed by both Ronan and Gansey, because he dislikes being coddled, and he absolutely hates appearing weak.

“I handled it.  He’s gone,” Adam says.

He bristles when Ronan sits on the bed like he means to make himself at home.  Adam looks like he wants to step into Ronan’s space, punch him, and toss him out.  Ronan is surprised when Gansey takes a seat on the other corner of the bed.  Both Gansey and Ronan stay silent, because they know Adam usually needs words to fuel his anger.  Besides, Ronan is out of conversation for now.  He doesn’t know what the hell to say to Adam to make this alright.

“You two are impossible,” Adam practically spits at them, but Ronan can see the fight starting to leave Adam’s body.  The tense rigidity of his spine begins to uncoil and Adam slumps into the spot on the bed between Ronan and Gansey.  “I’m so tired of this,” Adam tells them.  Ronan nods his head in agreement.

None of them say another word for many, many minutes until Ronan breaks the silence and asks, “Want to come and help me bury myself?”

“No,” Adam tells him, voice warring between weariness and exasperation.

“I don’t think it’s wise for us to leave you here alone.  Just in case,” Gansey says.

Adam sighs, and it is a long-suffering sigh.  He stands and finds his worn pair of off-brand sneakers and slips them on.  He takes his keys off of a nail by the door and waits for Ronan and Gansey to leave so he can lock the door behind them.

They stop at Monmouth for shovels, and Ronan tosses them in the back seat beside Adam, who is already dosing against the window.  Ronan turns on his music, but out of consideration for Adam leaves its volume at a level that will only _possibly_ cause permanent hearing damage rather than definitely.  Gansey looks grateful for that. 

Ronan peels out of the parking lot and his car cuts through the dark night.  They head toward the only place they can safely bury the body.  It’s too bad that they don’t need it for the plan, but Ronan lets Adam’s version of it stand as it is.  Besides, if Ronan tried to keep the body at this point, Gansey might get suspicious.  Both Adam and Ronan already agreed that Gansey doesn’t need to know what dark deeds they have been up to in their spare time.

The dead Ronan is easier to carry with three of them.  The moment they enter Cabeswater the atmosphere around them goes from a dark, cold evening, to a warm spring morning.  There is dew on the grass, and the trees are practically singing above them.  Ronan can hear them whisper assurances to Adam, and Adam runs a frustrated hand through his hair and the trees go silent.  Adam probably asked them to stop, and Ronan, blessed with so many gifts, still gets jealous sometimes that Cabeswater is in Adam’s head. 

Ronan leads them on a path that is far away from where his own mother stays.  He tries to not think about her, because Cabeswater likes to listen and make thoughts into reality, and the last thing he wants is his mother to discover Ronan burying bodies.  Even worse if she finds out it is his own body. 

The three of them find a suitable spot just beyond a rock bed and a fallen tree, and they dig a hole just long enough and deep enough for the body.  They dump it in and cover it up.  Adam leans down and whispers over the grave, likely talking to Cabeswater as he says in Latin, “Protect and hide this.” 

After Adam stands straight again, Ronan asks, “Want to say a few parting words about the deceased?” as he tamps down the dirt on top of the shallow grave. 

“Really?” Adam asks with no small amount of irritation.

“Really,” Ronan replies with a sharp-toothed smirk.  He is the only one laughing at his own joke.

“Okay then,” Adam continues, “He was an asshole.”

Ronan crosses his arms.  It isn’t that he didn’t see this coming, because Adam sometimes says shitty things when he is in one of his self-pitying moods.

Adam holds Ronan’s gaze, and then he adds an addendum.  “He was an asshole who was my friend, and if he ever dies on me again, I’m going to bring him back just so I can kill him myself.”

“Poignant,” Gansey says as he picks up his shovel and starts to walk back to the car.  Adam and Ronan continue their stare down, each simmering in their own anger.  Ronan rolls his eyes at Gansey as the other boy calls back over his shoulder, “I will leave you both here to work out your issues.  Don’t think I won’t.”

As angered as Ronan is by the things Adam says, he is also a little touched.  Adam obviously cares, and is probably just pissed that Ronan is so flippant about something as disturbing as his own death.  Ronan refuses to admit to Adam that it all unnerves him too, mostly because it would ruin Ronan’s hard-earned persona to seem that soft about something as inconsequential as his own death.  However, Ronan has never considered himself untouchable, no matter what his attitude says to the contrary.  There has been too much death in his life to believe that it can’t happen to him.

“Let’s get going,” Ronan mutters and grabs the shovel Adam left sticking out of the ground near the grave. 

“I can get that,” Adam says and reaches for the shovel, but Ronan snatches it out of his reach.

“I’ve got it.  Just lead us home,” Ronan tells Adam, and then he adds, so that Cabeswater hears, “I don’t want to be wandering in this forest all damn night.”  Which is a weird thing to say considering the sun is warm, and it shines in on them through the breaks in the trees, but Ronan knows how Cabeswater can be, and Ronan feels how it wants to keep them, to reassure them that they are safe and they should stay where they are safest—in Cabeswater.

They finally reach the boundary of the forest and step out into the dark stillness.  Ronan will have to check the clock in the car to see what time it really is.  His watch spent most of their walk back ticking in reverse, and it says it is 4:28pm.  Gansey is leaning against the trunk and warming his hands by blowing on them. 

“I knew you’d still be here.  You can’t leave without the keys,” Ronan hisses and he pulls them from his pocket and unlocks the BMW.  Ronan is about to stomp his way to the driver’s seat, but Gansey reaches out and grabs the sleeve of Ronan’s leather jacket.

“Just wait,” Gansey says and as he breathes out, Ronan sees his breath bloom into a small cloud in the cold night air. 

Adam seems to catch the cue faster than Ronan and leans against the back trunk too, right next to Gansey.  Gansey waits until Ronan takes his place on the other side of him.

“I don’t know exactly what the two of you have been up to.  I’m not sure I want to know either.  However, if you are fighting over burying bodies like this, perhaps what you’re doing is too dangerous,” Gansey says, voice quiet.  Ronan can hear the worry in it. 

“It’s more dangerous for us not to,” Adam tells his friend.  Ronan nods in agreement, because if they leave it, then who knows what will happen, or who Greenmantle will hurt.  This is one time when they do not have the luxury of waiting the situation out. 

“Well,” Gansey begins, “I’ll have to trust the two of you on that.  And know that I do trust you.  I’m just worried.”

‘ _Me too.’_  Ronan feels the thought creep into his mind, and then furiously scratches it out.  He can’t allow himself to worry.  Ronan has to do what he does best—to _act_. 

Gansey puts a hand on Ronan’s shoulder and gives it a squeeze.  He does the same thing with Adam.  Ronan sees relief wash over Adam, and he can’t say that he isn’t feeling the same.  The two of them would do anything for Gansey, and honestly it is nice to know that Gansey has their back just as much as they have his. 

“Let’s get going,” Gansey says as he pushes off the back bumper and claims shotgun.  Adam slinks into the backseat and curls against the door.  Ronan thinks he might be asleep even before the key is put into the ignition.  Ronan revs the car and they leave Cabeswater in a plume of dust. 

Ronan promises to protect both of them.  Ronan refuses to lose one more person he loves, and Ronan finally admits to himself that he does love both of them, in more ways than one.  If that means he has to conjure and sacrifice a hundred doubles of himself to do that, he will.  He and Adam are Gansey’s knights, and Gansey their king, and their bonds will not be easily broken.


End file.
